


somewhere in between

by Aezlo



Series: Rest and Recovery [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alien Biology, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Light Angst, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, some best friend squad/princess alliance are around too, some sorcerers and etherians as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aezlo/pseuds/Aezlo
Summary: In the days following the attack on the Heart, the clones all appear to be going through a rough withdrawal process but the Etherians are a welcoming and peaceful people (thankfully).Their camp is threatened by a string of unusual earthquakes, forcing a sudden move. Tensions run a little high in the Princess Alliance, and Hordak and Princess Entrapta assist in the clean up of an old, abandoned settlement for the diaspora.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Series: Rest and Recovery [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786942
Comments: 26
Kudos: 171





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note that this begins directly after the first part of this series, so you should probably read that first!

_The air is cool here with a warmth curling underneath, like he’s very far underground. In front of him is an impressive wall made of some jeweled, blue substance with thin engravings on it in jagged lines. It seems familiar to him, somewhat like the First One’s language, though he’s never been able to parse it. He’s honestly never really put in the effort to try. This seems like it could be a dialect, or maybe a different way of writing out the long, scrawling symbols._

_He wants to study the runes more, but his body turns from the written mural to the only source of light in the chamber: a brilliant blue crystal, five meters tall and flickering from within like a guttering flame._

_They’re trying to stop him, to keep him from this, he realizes. They’ve kept something from him, something that’s rightfully his. His hand reaches out to caress the crystal, and he finds himself staring at the metal talon on his forefinger more than the magic jumping and jittering within the crystal, upset at his touch. He feels himself reach forth and pull somehow, feels the magic coursing into his palm, into his core, unhappy and squirming. He grins and chuckles to himself at its token resistance. Power will always seek like, and this magic is no different._

_An ear-splitting screech rings out behind him, and his arm is suddenly no longer held out in front of him, but lying limply at his side. He turns to see what made the noise, feeling out the hivemind for clues, but meets only static and a discomforting numbness that blossoms out from his right shoulder._

Pain lances through the space where the hivemind should be, and Hordak wakes with a choked gasp. He pants, staring around wildly to take in his surroundings, weakened hands gripping at the arm rests of his wheelchair. The panicked indentations that he’s left in prior fits are comforting in a way, and after a few moments of finding only himself and Entrapta in a fair-sized tent full of Entrapta’s lab-gear, he begins to relax.

This is apparently common enough that Entrapta hasn’t even jumped at his panicked gasp. She’s currently welding two pieces of something metallic together, humming loudly to herself while Emily looks on, the bot wiggling up and down a bit. Hordak rubs his face with a shaky hand, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking stock of his situation.

The first week after the defeat of Prime has flown by in a haze of pain and discomfort for Hordak. By the fifth day, all of the other clones had begun to show signs of the withdrawal and even some of the previously-chipped Etherians were showing symptoms as well. It was not what he would have wished upon anyone, but it was the resultant consequence of his actions. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about it all.

Hordak himself is having more issues than he would like to admit. He keeps passing out upon standing up, and he wants to fuss with his clothes, or fix up his ports, or otherwise feebly attempt to get himself back together. He’s spent so much of the past thirty years in that state of _must fix this by myself even though I’m ill because it will just get worse otherwise_ that it’s difficult to turn off. Emily and Entrapta spend a lot of time following him around, shoving him (gently) into chairs or cots, and insisting that they take care of whatever he needs in the moment.

His legs don’t appear to be degenerating, but he’s struggling with dizziness and stability too much to chance walking unassisted. Entrapta’s worked out something of a wheelchair for him from some horde tech and whatever else she had lying around: three spidery legs supporting Hordak’s overlarge frame with a little control panel on one of the arms. The chairs for the same purpose that they’d found in the Etherian medical supplies were mostly too small, and would be unwieldly for the terrain they currently found themselves in. Hordak had accepted the help with some mild protest.

Entrapta has moved her lab-tent into the quarantine area since she couldn’t trundle Hordak out to her tent thanks to the protective magic, and he’s been doing poorly enough that she figured it was better to keep him on the medical side of camp. The barrier is a useful thing, something one of the sorcerers from Mystacor had put up to keep the clones from dying of withdrawal _and_ exposure. It also has the added benefit of keeping the clones… contained. There isn’t quite a consensus yet on what to do with them all, but so far everyone in the Heart camp is focused on recuperation and healing after the battle.

Hordak has spent most of his time shivering feverishly in his wheelchair off to the side in Entrapta’s makeshift lab, wrapped in a horde blanket, and wearing cast-offs from the Etherians that Entrapta scrounged up for him. He’d handed off the strange fabric of the bodysuit as soon as she’d found him something else to wear. The discarded suit is currently lying in a heap, partially pulled apart to be studied along with a myriad of other things from Prime and the channels around the Heart.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Entrapta has apparently finished welding whatever she was working on, perhaps a piece for Emily based on the look of it, and turns to Hordak. He flushes and looks away, replying with a short grunt.

Entrapta opens her mouth to begin a long, involved hypothesis about metal alloying and energy transfer rates when a low, deep rumble begins in the distance and very quickly rocks its way to their current location. A sharp, jerky earthquake hits them, and Hordak lurches his chair back, narrowly avoiding an avalanche of Prime’s arm-cannon materials that slough onto the ground where he’d been sitting just a moment prior.

Emily offers a low, concerned _bwoop?_ in the resulting silence as the earthquake slows to a gentle rocking and finally stops.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” the bubbly clone that keeps fawning around Entrapta lurches into the tent, clutching his head and prancing worriedly in place.

“An earthquake,” Entrapta and Hordak manage to answer nearly in unison, their tones wildly different.

“A _what?_ ” he shrieks, and the sound begins again in the distance. This time the earthquake hits quicker, another sharp jerk that likely would’ve snapped Hordak’s arm had he been clutching something attached to the ground.

“I have just remembered that we are in a very seismically active canyon at the moment! We shouldn’t have made camp here!” Entrapta squeals, running in a few tight circles on her hair before powering out of the tent. The clone, who still hasn’t chosen a name for himself besides Hordak’s own _,_ much to Hordak’s frustration, blinks wetly at him.

“It’s a natural phenomenon,” Hordak grunts, “you must have run into them when you were in the field?” Wrong Hordak looks mildly confused and Hordak sighs. “Come, help me get some of these things secured down,” he waves the clone over, and begins carefully levering himself upright to begin picking up the debris on the ground. He can stand upright sometimes, so long as he takes an absolutely absurd amount of time getting there.

A few slow, back-and-forth rocking earthquakes roll through while the two clones and Emily work to get things sorted back into Entrapta’s crates. She’s clearly collected much more than what she’d brought, and even what she’d brought originally has been altered so that it won’t fit the same way it was packed. It’s a trying exercise, and Hordak finds himself sweating so profusely that his eyes are blurred with it, and shaking terribly from the exertion. It’s lucky that Emily is nearby to catch him as he loses his balance a few times.

Suddenly Entrapta blunders back into the tent, trailing Adora, Catra, Glimmer, and a few other princess associates that Hordak is familiar with, but can’t name reliably at the moment.

“As I was saying,” Entrapta taps rapidly into her lab computer, one of the domed screens cracked through from some forceps falling into it from behind. “Between Prime’s cracking into the ground for the Heart, and the activation of the Heart, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more seismic activity in this area already! This area has always been very active, I had theorized there might be a dormant volcano deep underground, I’d never IMAGINED that it might be something like the Heart of Etheria!”

On her various screens, maps and images of the area are displayed, some highlighted with notes in her hand, others more general warnings or notices.

“Wait, we’re in Dryl?” Glimmer asks, looking dumbstruck at one of the maps.

“Technically!” Entrapta’s grin is a bit manic as another low rumble rocks them. “It’s in between Brightmoon and Dryl. Our borders have never really been clearly annexed,” she waves a hair hand dismissively and Catra scoffs softly in the background. Hordak roughly flops into his chair, feeling incredibly dizzy from the exertion while Wrong Hordak keeps trying to put an overlarge armor plate into a crate nearly two sizes too small for it. Hordak simply doesn’t have the capacity to deal with that at the moment.

“We should move our camp, but—” Entrapta’s voice peaks up into a worried laugh that makes Hordak’s fuzzy consciousness hone in on her sharply. “Most of the surrounding areas are also rocky, seismically active, or otherwise inhospitable!” On the screen, a few icons appear around their location, indicating sharp cliffs, elemental activity, and more earthquake-prone areas.

“We could rebuild Craggmine, here,” she points to a forested location near one of the elemental icons. “But we’d have to clean out the elementals, or, m-maybe—”

“ _Like I said_ ,” Mermista interrupts, shoving herself in front of Adora and Glimmer, “we should focus on rebuilding what was _lost_.” On the last word, she gives Hordak a withering glare which he merely blinks at, confused. She snorts in disgust. “Let the clones handle themselves. We need to focus on _our_ people first.”

“Craggmine was lost to the elementals over a hundred years ago!” Entrapta snaps, her hair puffing as she turns towards the sea princess. “We should rebuild what’s needed! And we can’t stay _here_ because of the seismic activity, which is why—”

“Look, why don’t we all just return to Brightmoon and then we can figure out the details later,” Bow puts a hand on Mermista’s shoulder to pull her back, his tone conciliatory and soothing.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to go home and sleep in a _real_ bed,” Glimmer cracks her back and Mermista growls loudly and clenches her hands into fists.

“ _Not all of us have a home to go back to, Glimmer!_ ” Mermista shouts. “I can’t believe that you’re all—” she makes a rough frustrated noise, “ _like this!_ What is your problem? We have to focus on rebuilding what’s important, our planet is in _shambles_ thanks to what they did!”

Adora hums next to her, looking conflicted. “Look, Mermista. We’re going to rebuild Salineas, and the Sea Gate! But right now, we need to get out of this canyon and Brightmoon doesn’t have the space for all these civilians. You’re welcome to come back with us to Brightmoon once we move camp, though.”

Mermista fumes, and stalks out of the tent, comically knocked off balance as another earthquake trembles through the area.

“I’ll take Glimmer and She-Ra and we’ll see if we can’t find out what the elementals were guarding in Craggmine. Catra, you’ll oversee packing up camp?” she looks over at Catra with something overly fond in her face that makes Hordak feel like he’s intruding on a personal moment. He flushes faintly and returns his attention to Entrapta.

“Sure thing,” Catra grumbles quietly, shuffling her feet and tail uneasily.

“We should try to get out of the canyon before nightfall. It looks like the seismic activity is going to keep increasing, and there might be a big earthquake tonight,” Entrapta seems mildly subdued, her tone a little prickly in spite of her intense focus on her computer screens.

“Alright!” Bow grins. “Let’s get started!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, I am grumpy that the maps are super inconsistent in the show, so I'm just going with what makes sense to me. Prove me wrong if you like!


	2. Chapter 2

It’s strange working with Catra again, but Hordak doesn’t really have the time to get into all of the intricacies there. The quick-jerk quakes are happening more often, interspersed with a near constant slow rocking. Hordak manages to remain conscious and lucid through the afternoon, shepherding clones with Wrong Hordak and an elderly sorcerer holding a gentle containing spell so that no one gets left behind. Some of the Etherians have already bonded with their sick mates, but not all of the clones are lucky enough to have an Etherian watching out for them to make sure they don’t wander off.

She-Ra and her crew give the all-clear on Craggmine’s location after a few hours, and they’re lucky in that there are still some structures standing. Apparently, most of the buildings in Dryl are built of stone rather than wood so basic shelter will be available for some. Tents are still being put up though, considering the number of people displaced. Craggmine had just been a minor mining village based on its size, apparently only housing around five to six families at its peak. Tonight it’ll be hosting nearly five hundred Etherians and clones, though some of the camp has already begun to splinter off.

Mermista and a slew of her people left before they’d even begun to settle in, making their way to the Driftwood, a dock town on the edge of Dryl’s territory. By nightfall, a number of Etherians who shared her mindset had quietly left camp as well. The clones mostly made it through the move unscathed, though many of them began to collapse of exhaustion the second they stopped moving.

Hordak hasn’t seen Entrapta much since the morning. She’s been busy taking readings of the earthquakes and recording what she can of the area before it collapses. His thoughts often turn to her throughout the day, though he does his best to remain focused.

“You look beat, tough guy,” Catra drawls from behind him, and Hordak’s back stiffens in response. He had been panting a little, leaning hard on Emily to remain upright while he observed a few clones and Etherians putting Entrapta’s tent back together. This was the longest he’d been upright since Prime’s demise, and it was taking its toll on him, though he was wont to admit it.

“How is it that you always recognize me specifically?” Hordak muses a little breathlessly, pushing himself into a stiff at-ease position with some effort. His left knee trembles, and he does his best to still it with only mild success.

“Well, right now, you’re the only clone dressed like _that_ ,” she finally rounds into his sight and points sharply at his middle. He flinches minutely as she has very sharp claws and his stomach has lost some of its protective placoid scales. He looks down at the castoffs he’s been wearing for the past few days a little dubiously: a loose teal sarong and an oddly fitted tunic from one of the beast races in a dark blue. It doesn’t quite cover his stomach, but the arms are long and wide enough that he can avoid brushing the holes against the fabric.

Hordak makes a disgruntled noise, and crosses his arms sorely in front of his chest.

“It is not as if I have had the time to make my own garments, Force Cap…” they both hiss a little at the slip, and Hordak lets himself fold down a little to lean on Emily with a long sigh. “Catra,” he amends after a moment.

“It is good to… be a familiar face,” he offers softly after a moment, looking away from her and idly tapping Emily’s chassis with his talons.

“Y-yeah,” Catra rubs her shoulders as if she’s cold. The large companion animal that she’s acquired since being rescued appears from somewhere and twines around her legs. “I should go make sure the canteen’s being set up right. Everyone’s going to be starving after this move,” she leans away from him a little, still rubbing an arm.

Hordak nods, unsure as to why she might be seeking approval from him in this instance.

Catra turns to leave, but her animal stands in her way and butts against her legs. She makes a frustrated noise, and stops, crossing her arms and fuming in place. “Hordak,” she starts, her tone clearly annoyed, “you seem well enough that you could come to the firepit tonight.”

Hordak watches her back, taut with frustration, her tail fwipping tightly in place.

“Once Entrapta returns, I will… see. She may be too tired.”

Catra gives him an amused look that Hordak doesn’t know how to read, and shrugs a little. “See ya later, then.”

Once Catra’s form retreats out of sight, Hordak’s limbs begin trembling in earnest. “Emily,” he huffs quietly. “Can you call my chair over here?”

* * *

He misses the evening meal that night, falling asleep in his chair in the remade lab tent not long after Catra leaves. He has loose and illogical dreams as he drifts in and out of sleep, fragments of glossy pools of water, runestones, and silver talons chasing him awake, followed by the throbbing pain of what’s left of the hivemind.

He wakes with a soft grunt in the faint morning light to find Entrapta sleepily meandering around the tent, her hair damp and heavy. She’s assembling something near him, and he blinks away his sleepy grogginess to watch her movements in the dark. Entrapta’s work coveralls are caked in dirt, but her face is clean and she smells faintly of something soapy. He squints to figure out exactly what she’s doing, and finds that she’s assembling her cot and bedding the way that she likes. He grumbles angrily at himself once he notices. They’d gotten all of her lab materials in place, but had managed to forget something so basic as her sleeping arrangements?

Entrapta turns to him at the noise, her hair moving slowly, perhaps due to her exhaustion or its dampness, and reaches up to flick on the small overhead light.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she offers with a small smile. “You looked so peaceful!”

Hordak huffs a quiet laugh, “I’m sure I will sleep again soon. It seems to be all I am good for at the moment.”

“Hey!” Entrapta cocks a hand on her hip and gives him a sassy glare. Hordak smirks at her, feeling something reverberating and warm in his chest.

“I had thought we got everything in place, but…” he trails off.

“All the clones got back, and all of my supplies are really neat now!” she swings on her hair a little, but in its damp and un-pigtailed state, she flails and falls as one of the sides doesn’t support her well enough. “Eheh,” she gives him an embarrassed look, and runs her gloved hands through her hair nervously.

“That is true,” Hordak allows, a small bemused look on his face. “Did you get something to eat, Entrapta?”

“Oh! Yes. The canteen made me some tiny meat pies that they heated up for me, they were delicious!”

“I’m glad,” Hordak nods. His head suddenly cracks back with a protracted yawn that seems to have come out of nowhere.

“Did you?” Entrapta is back to stuffing blankets and bedding into a messy arrangement that only she seems to understand. Hordak makes a quiet questioning noise, the exhaustion and pain of the day settling back into his bones. “Did you get a snack pack?” she turns back to him, grinning a little at the cute name for the packets of food and water that they’ve made for the clones. He’d had one before they started moving, but Entrapta seemed to feel that he needed the proper three-a-day that most beings on Etheria needed. He hasn’t convinced her yet that clones really need less food, water, or rest than Etherians, but in his current state, he can’t make a particularly strong argument for it, can he?

“In the afternoon,” he answers. “We can have breakfast once we wake. Catra asked us to join the nightly firepit meal last night,” he wiggles his shoulder in a mistimed shrug, unsure of how exactly to convey the awkward interaction. “Perhaps she will be mollified by our presence at the morning meal.”

Entrapta yawns herself, and nods vaguely. “Good night Hordak,” she thumps into her mess of pillows and blankets.

“Rest well, Entrapta,” Hordak intones, something warm fluttering in his chest.


	3. Chapter 3

They end up sleeping in until the late morning, and once they get up, the camp is buzzing with midday activity. Many of the sorcerers remain, though they’re beginning to loosen the leash on the clones, letting them roam free so long as they have a chaperone of some sort. Hordak finds all the white magic interesting, much different from his experiences with Shadow Weaver. He’s vaguely curious where the witch has gone, but not enough to investigate for himself. Shadow Weaver only cares about herself and her own survival, so there’s no doubt in his mind that she’ll crawl out of some hole at some inconvenient time down the line. 

"The quakes stopped as soon as Prime’s drill hole was covered up. It's almost like there was an intelligence behind them! I would've liked to study the Heart, I hope it's not destroyed or damaged..." Entrapta pokes at her snack-sized tacos, a little larger than her normal fare but still more miniature than everyone else’s meals.

"It’s likely still accessible through the tunnels," Hordak offers. He'd followed Prime’s attack on the Heart as closely as he dared, unwilling to admit to himself that he’d been hoping for a deus ex machina to stop his creator until he was compelled to do so himself. He’d seen the twisting pathways curling deep into Etheria’s core as Prime slowly forced himself into the First One’s weapon. "Perhaps it has some self-defense capabilities?"

"Yeah! Maybe. If scavengers took the wrong thing in there it would be devastating!"

"Excuse me, Princess Entrapta?" One of the mages appears beside them at their table and is looking very pointedly at Entrapta.

"Hello," Entrapta furrows her brow. "…do I know you?" she looks perplexed, a tuft of hair rubbing at her chin in deep thought.

"Ah, well, I'm Castaspella, the head sorcerer of Mystacor?" she seems a little put out that Entrapta hasn't recognized her. “Glimmer’s aunt?”

Entrapta continues to look perplexed for a moment, before comprehension hits, and she exclaims an “Oh!” and nods. "Did you need something?" she frowns at the taco she’s currently working on; it keeps falling apart no matter how she arranges it.

"Uh, well, Glimmer and her friends left for Brightmoon this morning and they wanted me to let you know. Apparently, the Moonstone is behaving oddly and Glimmer’s… well, she’s having some difficulties teleporting, so they had to leave before they could say goodbye."

"Oh?" Entrapta gives up on the taco and turns to give Castaspella all of her attention.

"Also," Castaspella nervously readjusts her cape. "We're having difficulties locating where Mystacor is at the moment, so the sorcerers may need to stay here for a bit longer. I’m sure it’ll turn up again!” she laughs nervously, eyes darting every which way, “We just have to wait for its cycle to reset and then… then everything will be just fine!"

"Wait, so it _is_ true that Mystacor isn’t in one location? It teleports all over Etheria?" Entrapta boosts herself on her hair, apparently propelled upwards by her excitement.

Castaspella’s eyes pointedly linger on Hordak for a moment, and he quirks a brow at her in response. “The, uh, entrance does, yes.”

“How does that work? If it’s got a landmass, it must be rooted somewhere, or… is it in a different dimension? Does it use portals? Mini-portals? _Magic_ portals?” she shares a frankly adorable enthused expression with Hordak, and he feels his face soften in response. Castaspella furrows her brow at their interaction and clears her throat quietly.

“Is. Uhm. Will you allow the mages of Mystacor to stay here while we wait for it to resurface?” Castaspella nervously scrunches a bit of her cape up in one of her hands.

“Sure!” Entrapta grins. “When it reappears can I study the entrance? Do you know when it’s going to show up? How often does it teleport?”

Hordak puts up a finger, and once Entrapta finishes her thought and pauses for him, he interjects, “How long does a cycle last?”

“Oh, about six months,” Castaspella smile seems a little taut, “but… it could also be longer, there’s different cycles and I’m not sure what Prime had Micah change the cycling to. Shadow Weaver was able to find it, but well, she always has a way of getting into places she isn’t supposed to.” She gives a sharp little uncomfortable laugh behind her hand, looking away.

Hordak barks out a low, humorless laugh, and Castaspella frowns at him. “Indeed, she does,” he offers simply.

“Well, you can stay here, but we’re going to have to rebuild and add more structures to the area. We can use your magic to help with construction, though I’m sure I can rig up some bots to do most of the heavy lifting…” Entrapta pulls her data pad from somewhere on her person and begins tapping rapidly at it.

“That seems fair,” Castaspella states diplomatically, her eyes still considering and darting between the two of them.

“I haven’t been to Dryl in ages, I don’t think my bots are going to be in good enough condition to rebuild anything,” Entrapta’s mouth curls in thought, a tendril of hair rubbing her chin.

“I’m sure Catra left a platoon of bots at your castle, and I doubt they were ever mobilized. They’re easy to rework into construction bots. There’s likely a schematic in there for it,” he gestures vaguely at her data pad.

“That’s perfect!” Entrapta beams.

“You’re Lord Hordak,” Castaspella takes a step back, her voice low and horrified, and Hordak feels like the ground tilts sharply under him as panic suffuses him. He hadn’t really paused to consider the danger that he, himself, might be in, convalescing in a camp full of Etherians, should they know about him, his true identity. He’d been in a near constant vigilant state under Prime, and upon his death he had relaxed the taut grip just a little, considered that maybe it might be safe. But _he_ was the clone who had brought Horde Prime to Etheria, and if anyone were to realize that he was not just another clone… being here, he was endangering the nascent lives of all the clones around him, perhaps he was even endangering Entrapta? The last he’d known of her, her relationships with the other princesses had been a bit fraught, and considering the sea-princess’ outburst yesterday, it was unlikely that having him in her life would be beneficial in forging the relationships she’d need in the coming months.

A lock of hair comes to rest on his shoulder, present and grounding in a way, and he’s vaguely aware of Entrapta’s voice pitching out a lot of quick darts of phrases that he doesn’t even bother trying to understand in the moment, with Castaspella stumbling and replying stiltedly.

“Hordak?” Entrapta’s voice punctures the buzzing in his head, the tendril on his shoulder rubbing back and forth to further pull his attention forward. His face feels strangely hot and as he turns towards her, he finds his neck is almost too stiff to move.

He attempts to swallow and finds his mouth to be desert dry, and coughs a little. A quick darting glance at his peripherals tells him that Castaspella has somehow disappeared in the intervening moments of him coming back to himself.

“Are you alright? Seemed like you got lost there for a minute,” one of Entrapta’s hands nervously taps at the table, and he finds himself hyperfocusing on the sensation reverberating through the plastic of the table.

“I’m…” he has to swallow thickly again, his voice oddly distant and scratchy. “I’m fine,” he clears his throat, and the sound seems to echo in his head for a moment. Entrapta drops her head, and her mask slots down in front of her face with the added gravity. Her hands tap a little more insistently at the table, her fingers curling into near-fists.

“I’m fine,” he tries again. “Well,” he gives another discomforted swallow. “Perhaps I might need another fluid pack…” he trails off, sweeping his gaze across the camp. The mage has completely disappeared on him, which is disconcerting. A few Etherians are carrying some raw lumber through the canteen area to another part of camp, huffing with the effort and making a lot of raucous, happy noise.

“Here,” Entrapta has skipped off to the refrigerated box they’re keeping the reusable packs in, and kept the heavy presence of her hair on his shoulder so that he hadn’t even noticed her departure. His lack of attentiveness makes him sway slightly in alarm. He’s been doing better, staying lucid and focused most of yesterday. What’s going on?

He nods stiffly, clumsily taking the pack from her hair and looping the cabling under his shirt.


	4. Chapter 4

Entrapta gets pulled away not long after that, sending Emily to recon around her castle, and asking around for any subjects who have been in the area in the last year. Hordak heads over to the clone part of camp with his chair, and tries to occupy himself with inventorying the medical supplies left over after the move. He’d shoved a lot of this sort of grunt work off on his second-in-command when he’d been in charge of the horde, but occasionally he could still be found counting and scanning boxes in the dead of night, filing and stamping paperwork, that sort of thing. It had the added benefit of adding to his mystique, though it was less him looming over and double-checking his subordinates work than just a night too painful to sleep, too tired to work.

He stands up carefully to put the box he’s just been working on up on the top of the storage stack, and pauses as he notices something shiny on the ground nearby. He finds that he dearly misses Emily at the moment; he has to cling to walls and boxes if he’s out of his chair, and his grip is not always as sure as he’d like.

He drops into his chair and maneuvers it closer, suspiciously considering the surrounding area, but the activity remains normal. The Etherians are putting up some sort of wooden town hall for everyone to get together and take their meals in, replacing the worn and holey tents, and they’re making a party of that too. As they push up each supporting beam, they sing some sort of work song which carries across the camp. A few clones are helping them, though they’re not joining in with the singing as far as he can tell.

He bends forward in the chair to pick up the shiny material, unwilling to work himself up to standing just to stoop down. It’s dark gray, perhaps a scale from the elementals that Entrapta had mentioned? He honestly has little experience with elementals, so he can’t be sure. He shifts it back and forth in his hand, pausing at the smeary reflected glow of his eyes. They appear to be yellow, much like many of the other clones at the moment. It had taken a few months before the effects had fully worn off when he’d first crash-landed on Etheria, and he hadn’t kept great track of his symptoms nor their eventual retreat. The defective red would return, eventually. He’s still as colorblind as ever, and he’s gotten a bit nearsighted over the years on top of that. He opens his mouth a little to check if it has turned red again too, but it’s difficult to tell in the blurred reflection.

He pauses as he hears a soft sob in one of the clone tents nearby. He considers his surroundings carefully, his ears swiveling to and fro. A clone appears to have stumbled into one of the tents alone, and none of the Etherians appear to have noticed, busy with the preparations for their evening meal.

After another moment of indecision, Hordak pushes his chair towards the tent he’d heard the noise come from. A single clone sits huddled on one of the cots, curled in on himself and crying softly. Hordak tenses, and strongly considers simply letting the clone be. Injury and illness for a clone was something to be avoided and hidden, and being found in such a state could cause the clone to lash out. It’s the tang of blood in the air that causes Hordak to shift out of his chair, and shuffle a little clumsily into the tent. It’s a valid way of announcing his presence, allowing the clone a second to compose himself, and it also allows Hordak to see that blood has splashed onto the ground, and is currently staining the clone’s robe as he clutches his injured arm to his chest.

The clone hiccups on a sob, and looks up at him blearily, his expression bleak until he sees that Hordak’s a fellow clone, and then his expression folds into muted shock, a clear attempt at ironing out any facial expression at all. Hordak turns away, rummaging in the crate nearby, pulling out two emergency kits and hoping that this doesn’t require stitches because they’re going to be incredibly sloppily done if so. Entrapta had made an attempt at a supportive mesh based on the fabric of the bodysuit for his arms, and it helped… but it was far too uncomfortable on the holes. For now, they’d made some plastisteel braces that offered a little extra support while his arms healed, and improved his dexterity minutely.

“What happened?” Hordak asks flatly, dropping heavily on the cot next to the clone and popping open one of the medical kits.

“Uhh,” the clone heaves a wet breath, eyes flicking over Hordak with trepidation.

“Let me see. I will help,” he holds a hand out to take the injured limb and look it over. After frowning a little, the clone offers his right arm shakily and Hordak doesn’t mask his sympathetic hiss as he sees the wound in total. The clone’s middle and ring finger have had the talons completely ripped back, deep enough to expose muscle and perhaps even bone on the middle one. The talon on his pinky finger appears crushed, and the finger itself is misshapen, bent too far inwards.

Hordak carefully pulls out the antiseptic and wets a cloth, considering how he’s going to manage the wounds.

“You were helping with the construction,” he offers to the silence in the tent, seeing bits of wood under the clone’s remaining talons. The clone nods faintly, eyes flipping between Hordak’s face and his gentle review of the wounds.

“This will sting,” he warns and begins cleansing the wounds. It’s messy, but he finds it somewhat soothing. He has to trim back some of the talon on the clone’s smallest finger, as well as splint the finger itself, and he packs the other fingers with gauze before wrapping the whole thing up into a curled, claw shape. He’s faintly aware of a soft rumbling, likely inaudible to most Etherians, coming from his chest and, after a time, echoed by the injured clone next to him. He finishes wrapping up the wound, and pauses to consider the feeling in his chest, a warmth that he’d often felt with Imp. He’s reminded of the time years ago when Imp had been young and he’d had to splint up the hybrid creature’s tiny wings after a tumble.

“You will change the gauze once a day. Try to keep it clean. Do not lift anything heavy,” he gently turns the clone’s wrist to ensure it isn’t damaged as well and is rewarded with a hiss as the clone pulls his hand away.

“Let me see,” he insists, holding his hand out again, and once the clone gives it to him again, he gently massages the wrist, and finds the bones in the correct locations. “It’s sprained. You can wrap your wrist as well, for extra support while it heals,” he offers, his own hands shaking a little from all the fine effort he’d put forth just now. He places the cloth wrap into the clone’s uninjured palm. The clone furrows his brow but carefully winds the wrap around his wrist a few times, and Hordak helps trim off the excess with scissors.

The clone peers down at the mess of gauze and wrapping on his hand and wrist with a quizzical expression. It is… unusual for this sort of cooperation to happen in the horde. A flaw would be reported to the hivemind immediately, not wrapped up and cared for.

“It… hurts, still,” the clone mumbles.

“It will,” Hordak offers mildly, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. He had not realized exactly how much emoting he’d picked up from the Etherians until it had been punished repeatedly during his return to Horde Prime. “Keep it above your hearts when you sleep, it will throb less.”

The clone nods slightly, looking faintly bashful. 

Hordak senses someone watching them and looks up to find Francis watching their interaction, his mouth slightly agape. He quirks a brow at him, feeling mildly defiant.

“I, sorry, I was just following the blood. You’re alright?” he asks of the clone next to him. The clone tenses as Francis draws near and seems to draw into himself, shivering.

“Injured, but I’ve bandaged it,” Hordak gestures, as if weren’t already plain. Francis seems confused by this still, but nods a little.

“It will heal,” the clone next to him says, his voice shaky.

“Yes,” Hordak rests a hand on the clone’s shoulder delicately, and that seems to calm him minutely.

“Are you a medic?” Francis asks, still watching him curiously.

“Our medics were all drones,” Hordak sighs. “They will all be gone with the hivemind destroyed.”

“Oh,” Francis nods, but it’s apparent that he doesn’t understand. A sound like a gong or a bell rings out across the camp, and both Hordak and the injured clone jerk at the sound.

“Ah, that’s the call for evening meal,” Francis gives them a game smile, apparently unaware of the ringing in both clone’s ears.


	5. Chapter 5

Hordak would forgo the evening meal, but he’s shaky and light-headed, and his injured compatriot should eat, so he ends up sitting with Francis and a few of the other medics at one of the tables, sharing bemused looks with the injured clone at how bizarre Etherian eating habits are. A fire roars in a stone hearth at one end of the new town hall, likely a remnant from one of the old houses here, and the smell of roasted meat wafts through the camp. The Etherians seem tired but convivial after a day of heavy labor, somehow still sparing some energy for silly shows of comradery like arm wrestling and card games.

“There you are!” Entrapta rushes over to him, swinging on her hair and carrying a paper plate loaded with cubes of meat, cheese, and the first fizzy drink he’s seen in ages. Perhaps Emily’s trip to the Crypto Castle was successful? Entrapta happily situates herself next to him, sitting on a chair of her own hair next to his set-aside seating of his wheelchair. It makes him smile warmly and openly at her, completely unaware of his sappy expression.

“You were looking for me?” he prompts after a moment.

“Well, of course,” she softly shoves at his chair, scoffing.

“I will never forget your tenaciousness in that regard,” he smirks, and she beams at him.

“Ohh, I missed fizzy drinks,” she sighs happily, sipping at the bottle of clear fluid, and he smiles at her genuine enjoyment of something. “Oh! Did you know that the Crypto Castle was occupied by Prime’s soldiers?” she turns the full beam of her attention on him and it seems like everything fades away whenever she does that.

“No, I did not,” he shakes his head.

“Emily’s still at the castle, and there are bots there, but not as many as I thought. It’s going to take some extra work to get a force up to start rebuilding Craggmine, let alone the rest of Etheria,” she hums a little, appearing slightly discontented as she chews.

“I’m sure you will be up to the task, Entrapta,” Hordak unhooks the remnants of his snack pack, and finds himself toying with the plastic tubing idly.

“Hordak,” Entrapta leans a little closer, her hair nearly brushing his arm on the chair.

“Yes?” he asks, withdrawing his arm from the armrest and considering her odd expression. He feels that she would usually cover her face in situations like this, but for once she’s showing him something that looks perhaps like worry or concern. “Will you come with me back to the Crypto Castle?” she asks quietly, her magenta eyes shining in the low-light of the townhall.

He smirks a little. A silly question. “Of course.” 

“Maybe… we could be lab partners again? I could really use your help with this…” she twiddles her hair hands in front of her, looking oddly bashful.

“I would be honored to be your lab partner, Entrapta,” he offers warmly, resting a hand shakily over her twiddling hair hands. She beams up at him, and he can’t label the fluffy warmth in his chest, but he finds he’s in favor of it, nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated, even if I don't get back to you, I read them! 
> 
> Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://daezdlo.tumblr.com/), if you like.


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